The Weekly Daf #380
Kiddushin 14-20
Issue #380 Parshat Bamidbar
Week of 28 Iyar - 5 Sivan 5761 / May 21 - 27, 2001
By Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, Dean, Ohr Somayach Institutions
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SICK LEAVE
If a Jewish slave who has an obligation to work for his master
for six years fell ill for three of those years, he has no
obligation to make them up by working another three years when
his six-year servitude is completed.
Does this rule apply as well to a teacher or worker who has
been hired for a long period and is unable to work for a
substantial amount of time because of illness?
This is the subject of a major debate between the early
commentaries. Tosefot cites the opinion of some authorities
who compared the teacher to the slave and considered him
entitled to full compensation without a need to make up for
the time lost because of illness. This opinion appears in the
commentary of Rabbi Mordechai bar Hillel Ashkenazi (Mesechta
Bava Metzia, par. 347). It is based on the fact that if the
slave who did something wrong (either by stealing or by
selling himself into slavery against the wish of Hashem, Who
wants Jews to be slaves only to Him and not to His slaves) is
given such consideration, then this leniency should certainly
apply to the teacher who did nothing wrong.
Tosefot, however, rejects this comparison between slave and
teacher. One of the distinctions he makes is that the slave
is considered the property of the owner during the six years
of his servitude and the payment he received was for giving
his master this ownership. His obligation to his owner is
only to work as much as he is able; if he is unable to work
because of illness, he has no obligation to make up for lost
time. The teacher, on the other hand, is not the property of
his employer and merely contracts to perform a service for
pay. His failure to provide this service because of illness
does therefore not entitle him to compensation.
Other distinctions are made by Tosefot here and by Rosh in
mesechta Bava Metzia (sixth perek par. 6). The latter cites
the opinion of Rabbi Meir that if the owner paid the teacher
in advance then he has no obligation to make up the time lost
because of illness. But if he has not yet paid him he must
make up the lost time if he wishes to be paid in full. Both
the opinion of Tosefot and the qualification of Rabbi Meir are
cited by Rema (Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 333:5) as
halachic conclusions.
* Kiddushin 17a
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SLAVE OR MASTER?
The condition of the Jewish slave, who is the subject of so
much of the first perek of our mesechta, was radically
different from the image that the word slavery conjures up in
our minds.
In Biblical and Talmudic times a Jew could become a slave in
one of two ways. If he was convicted of theft and lacked the
funds to compensate his victim, the court sold him into
slavery for six years so that the money paid by his purchaser
could be used for such compensation. There was also the
possibility of a Jew who reached such a desperate level of
destitution that the only way he could provide for himself and
his family was to sell himself as a slave.
In either case, the Torah laid down severe restrictions on the
manner in which such a slave is sold and the nature of the
work which can be assigned to him. These restrictions were to
insure that his dignity as a Jew was maintained. As if these
restrictions were not enough to achieve this goal, the Torah
explains the reasons for a slave wishing to stay on with his
master when his six-year period is over as "for it is good for
him to be with you" (Devarim 15:16). This is interpreted by
our sages as a directive to the owner of a Jewish slave to
assure that he enjoys the same quality of food, drink and
sleeping accommodations as his master, a requirement which led
the sages to conclude that "one who purchases a Jewish slave
is buying himself a master instead."
Tosefot raises the question as to why the Jewish slave is
considered like a master to his master when all that is
demanded of his master is to show him equality? As an answer
Tosefot cites the Jerusalem Talmud which discusses the case of
a master who has only one good mattress in his possession. If
he keeps it for himself and relegates the slave to a bed of
straw, he has not fulfilled the requirement of equality. To
withhold the use of the mattress from both would be behaving
with Sodomite insensitivity. The only course available then
is to give the mattress to the slave, which in a sense makes
him enjoy the status of master of his master rather than being
his slave.
* Kiddushin 20a
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